From Compton to the C-Suite: The Blueprint for Black Excellence

This week on Money & Wealth with John Hope Bryant, John sits down with Kristy Fercho — Senior Executive Vice President at Wells Fargo and the first Black woman ever to serve on the bank’s operating committee.

From growing up in Compton to leading billion-dollar businesses and helping shape financial inclusion at one of the world’s largest banks, Kristy shares the mindset, discipline, and authenticity that fueled her rise.

This powerful conversation dives into:

• Navigating corporate America as the “double only”
• Why relationships matter more than resumes
• Building generational wealth through homeownership
• The danger of compromising your values for success
• How Black and Brown professionals can access real capital and opportunity
• Lessons on leadership, confidence, faith, and legacy

John and Kristy also unpack the importance of financial literacy, mentorship, and creating pathways for future generations through initiatives like Operation HOPE and financial inclusion programs.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome The Money and Wealth with John O'Bryant, a production
of the Black Effect Podcast Network. iHeartRadio Network, and it
is season three. I want to thank you all for
making this one of the top podcasts for business and
entrepreneurship in the country and on every continent around the world.
And for our NAACP nomination. We lost to Michelle Obama,

(00:21):
but I'd be willing to do that any day of
the week. We have talking about amazing women, and we
don't feature women enough. We want to do more of that,
and I feature women in my upcoming book on my
book that's out now, that's Capitalism for All. And right today,
we have an amazing woman with us who is also

(00:43):
a good friend. Chrissy Ferko is senior executive vice president
ed Wells Fargo, which I believe is a Fortune one
hundred company, maybe Fortune and fifty, one of the biggest,
one of the four biggest banks in the US and

(01:04):
by extension, one of the ten biggest banks arguably in
the world when you take out Chinese banks or government
related Now that title I just gave you. And she's
also head of Financial Inclusion and she's on this is
very important. The operating committee for the bank. Now, for

(01:25):
those who are listening to this in their car while
they're going on a jog or whatever, in a traditional
podcast environment where most people are listening to it initially,
and you won't get around and seeing this on YouTube
until later or on social let me help you out.
She's black, she's a sister si Sta, and like me,

(01:48):
she's from Compton, California. Can't make the same. So this
is going to be a really a powerful episode because
we're going to go from Compton to the c suite,
the unlikely journey and what does that take? What does

(02:08):
that involve? How does that what does that require of
someone to be made of the kind of material to
be made of? What kind of material do you need
to make yourself of along the way? How do you
feel in the gaps? What to do? What to not do?
In that high powered position. Now, I'm going to give

(02:32):
some backgrounds so you have some context for her. But
people hear vice president at a bank or whatever, or
senior vice president of a bank. Oh, I've seen that before.
I've seen a business card that had senior vice president
on it. Yeah, you might have you seen it, might
have been in your local branch network in Houston. It
might have been in a local market in Miami and

(02:54):
you might have saw, oh, this person is a vice
president or a senior vice president. By the way, no
dis expected intended to what I'm about to say to
those people hold those titles. Locally, that's very important, and
locally they have enormous authority. What I'm talking about is
a corporate officer. I'm talking about on the operating committee,
which is where the CEO of the bank Charlie Sharp.

(03:17):
In this example, since I'm talking about again, I repeat
this senior executive vice president. Anybody knows corporate structure. That's
a big baller, shot caller. That's not an official phrase.
So let's talk about her prior rode before we getting
the living Christy talk. She's head of home lending. She

(03:40):
was head of home lending for Wells Fargo, leading twenty
five thousand professionals, so she was basically in charge of
Wells Fargo Mortgage. She was essentially the CEO of Wells
Fargo Mortgage. Actually, will ask where the title was. I
wouldn't be surprised if it literally was CEO well Christy.
What was the title with Wells Fargo Mortgage?

Speaker 2 (03:58):
Yeah, the CEO of home Lending.

Speaker 1 (04:00):
I told you big BALLI shot called the asset size
of Wills Fargo Mortgage when you were ceo.

Speaker 2 (04:09):
Well, we had one point two trillion in our servicing book. Jesus,
we did eight billion in revenue that year and two
point two billion in that income.

Speaker 1 (04:21):
See. See, when you got the power, you don't need
to need to use it. She she I was all loud,
like appreaching. She's like, yeah, just eight billion here and
I'm trillion there, and see, she's just so cool. When
you got the you got the power, you don't need
you She just low key. I want you to Anybody
riding their bicycle listening to this, she might have read
off the road, I need you. I need to buckle up.

(04:45):
This is a black woman making history and she's nice.
By the way, she's a nice person. She's authentic. So uh,
let me get into a bit more of the backstory,
and then I'm gonna something I don't typically do. I'm
gonna shut up and give her a couple questions and
let her just rip because she's got a lot to

(05:06):
share with you and a lot to teach. School is
in session. Backstory, Christy grew up in Compton, California. And
if you want to doose some research on her. On her,
it's K not C k R I S t y
f e r c h O. The H is silent furc.

(05:26):
It took me like twenty years to say fer croperty
and Christy Ferco. First time I called her Christy with
a C, She's corrected me, it's with a K John
She's She had no self esteem problem. So Christy grew
up in Common, California, and then moved to where I
grew up, and moved to Tucson, Arizona, a completely two
different worlds uh, and she never stopped traveling after that.

(05:50):
She mastered what I called code switching before there was
a language for it. She became a finance major who
dreamed of Wall Street. It ended up rewriting with leadership
Financial services looks like for a black woman everywhere. This
episode is not a career retrospective. It's a survival guy.

(06:11):
It's a Swiss army knife for women and anybody who
is striving. It is a masterclass and how to be
excellent in any room where no one looks like you,
and how to use that position not as a burden
but as a platform. I'm going to bring my own
experience to this where I need to layer in context,

(06:36):
maybe telling her a phrase that she mentions that it
needs to be defined, or saying something that she says
very casually, like billion or trillion that needs a little
bit more emphasis. But other than that, I'm gonna let
her rip. So she is really singular. I think you're
the highest ranking black female certainly at the bank.

Speaker 2 (06:59):
I am, and the first ever on the operating committee.

Speaker 1 (07:04):
Amen. I have an immense respect for this lady. I
like her, I admire her, I respect her. We laugh together,
we we scheme together about making the world better. She's
been a protector at the bank, supporter behind closed doors
and for me and for others. She when when somebody

(07:25):
like Bishop td Jakes, the great spiritual legend icon in
the world, when he says he talked to somebody, well,
Fargo Bank, nine times out of ten is Christy. He
can get to the CEO. But the CEO really asked
Christy to to do uh, to do the heavy lifting
really for these relationships, to make them work and bring

(07:46):
and make them real. So here is some context and
some questions for you. Oh and I guess before we
get in that we should go a little bit more
on the backstory you worked also other places you were
at Fanny May, But tell the audience is a little
bit more about the different roles you played before getting

(08:08):
to Wells Parget before I say that, by the way,
thirty years of experience in fincial services industry, even though
she only looks thirty five black dog crack. She's number
seventeen on the American Banker Most Powerful Women's list in
twenty twenty four, the first after American Chair of the
Mortgage Bankers Association, and led in her prior role twenty

(08:30):
five thousand team members. Again, that was her prior role.
She's doing much more now, tell us a little bit,
take us a bit back and filling the blanks, Christie,
on your prior corporate roles, I think it included Fannie
May and PepsiCo. If I'm not respecting mistaken.

Speaker 2 (08:46):
Yep, Yeah, so I've Wells Fargo is a fifth company
I worked for. So I started at Baxter Healthcare had
rules of sales, operations, total quality management back then when
that was a big thing. Went to Pepsi kind of
the Fridolay division first, and then ended up at PepsiCo headquarters.

(09:08):
So I spent about eight and a half years there
at the Pepsi companies. After Pepsi, I went to Fannie
May and spent fifteen years there. The first five was
in human resources and then got the opportunity to actually
move into the line business at Fanny May. So my
last ten years there was running a P and L

(09:29):
in the line business and L sorry, profit and loss statement,
So you are a business manager. You're making the decisions
about the business. And then left Fanny May and joined
a regional bank up in Detroit, Michigan called Flagstar and
went in as the president of the mortgage there. When

(09:51):
I got to Flagstar, they were really and they started
as a mortgage bank that actually bought a savings alone
to actually have a stable funding source for their mortgages.
And so mortgage was eighty percent of the revenue of
the bank when I got to Flagstar, and so it
was really a mortgage bank inside of inside of the bank.

(10:13):
And then was there for three years and then got
the call about Wells Fargo. So, as you've already said,
came into Wells Fargo almost six years ago now as
the CEO of the mortgage business. And did that for
a couple of years, and then got the opportunity to
get promoted onto the operating committee and did a role

(10:33):
with diverse segments, kind of bringing in diverse customers across
our five lines of business, and then for the last
year have been in this financial Inclusion opportunity role.

Speaker 1 (10:44):
My guess is when you got the when you were
at Wells Fargo Mortgage as CEO, you thought, my god,
I've hit the lottery. Is the top of the of
the top I've never thought, I mean, this is it.
I'll never go any that I'll need to. I'm at
the I mean, I'm at the pinnacle, Am I right?

Speaker 2 (11:04):
Yeah? It was well And when I got the call
to for about the Wells Fargo job at Flagstar, the
Wells Fargo job was ten times the size of the
revenue that I was doing at Fannie may or at Flagstar,
and it was Yeah, it was a big role. It
was the number one bank lender and number one servicer
in the country. It was the biggest mortgage job. And

(11:29):
so yeah, I thought, I thought I'd made it for sure.

Speaker 1 (11:34):
Yeah, And then then the call came to do something
bigger and more pronounced, and you stepped up and stepped
into that. And we're gonna get into why how in
a minute, what's a servicer? You mentioned another phrase, people
don't know what's the loan servicer?

Speaker 2 (11:46):
Yeah, So when people get a mortgage, it's when they
pay their payments every month. The servicer actually disperses those payments,
pays taxes, pays your es, bills, and services the mortgage.

Speaker 1 (12:03):
Basically, so the mortgage servicer and the mortgage company that
funds alone could be in many cases are different. Correct, absolutely, Okay,
all right, let's go back to Compton, California. Yeah, and

(12:26):
you know what did money look like growing up? What
did you see on those corners growing up? And what
did you make of it? Now we're gonna put the
postcript that I grew up in Compton, and I didn't
see ladies like she's fine. All the pretty girls were
on the down in the stuccle houses. So be real clear,
it was it was all the pretty girl territory. I

(12:47):
didn't know where for her dad was hiding. Her dad
was hiding CHRISTI because I'd have been all over on
a serious how'd you get? How do you become so nice?
I'm sure that in kind and decent. I'm sure that's
a parent thing. By the way, Christy is happily married.
So guys back off. But look like at Compton and

(13:07):
tell that story. What did money look like growing up?
And what do you see on those street corners?

Speaker 2 (13:12):
Yeah, I mean it, and it certainly changed over kind
of my upbringing there. But my dad was a track
coach at Compton High actually, and so that's kind of
where it started. My mom, you know, was a stay
at home mom kind of at first. But my parents

(13:32):
got married when my dad was in college, his sophomore
year in college, and so my dad was on scholarship
at San Jose and so scholarship athletes had to live
in the dorm, and so my mother worked a job
and held it down. My brother was here at the time,
I wasn't here yet. And then when my dad graduated college,

(13:55):
they moved back to Compton. My dad got the job
at Compton High and I was born and so, you know,
growing up on the streets. It evolved over time. I
think when you're a kid, you don't realize what's the
environment that you're, you know, growing up in. But as
I grew and got older, a lot of the kids
that I grew up with that were friends like, started

(14:17):
going to jail, started selling drugs, started being killed, and
we just had a different path. My father ended up
getting the track coach job at the University of Arizona.
In fact, he has a distinction of being the first
Division one black head coach ever. And we moved to Tucson, Arizona,

(14:39):
and so it was ninety nine point nine percent black
to ninety nine nine percent white in Tucson. So my
life really was you talked about code switching. My life
really was traversing both of those versus those worlds. But
no matter where I was, it was like, these were
the kids I grew up with. And I think that's
the beautiful thing about kids. They are resilient. You don't

(15:01):
realize if you have money or if you don't have money.
You don't realize what you have or what you don't have.
I always say all unhappiness is caused by comparison. And
my parents, Yeah, my parents really didn't let us focus
on comparison. It was like, what you have is what
you have, be grateful for it. And so grew up
with this mindset of appreciation and gratitude for what you

(15:24):
do have. And never worried about what we didn't have.
I think it wasn't until later in life. Actually I
went to USC University of Southern California, which was Los Angeles.
That's when I saw what real money looked like. That's
when I was first aware like, oh, there's kids that

(15:47):
have things that I do not have. Like my roommate
my freshman year, you know, her father pulled up her
car and it was a BMW on a flatbed truck.
Like I did not go to school with a car,
and I didn't have a car my whole four years
of college. That just that wasn't something for us. So
it wasn't really until I went to college that I

(16:09):
really realized the difference in people with money. Let's go
back money a little bike.

Speaker 1 (16:15):
Yeah, let's go back to conflict for a minute, because
you had something in complent. You didn't have money. If
you had wealth, you had wealth of spirit. Who who
your family told you they loved you, gave you, confidence,
gave you. Were you a daddy's girl?

Speaker 2 (16:28):
I was a daddy's girl. Yeah, very much.

Speaker 1 (16:30):
So.

Speaker 3 (16:31):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (16:31):
I think in our family, actually we didn't use the
word I love you in our house, and in fact,
I have no memories growing up of hearing my parents
say that they loved me. It was just a word
that my parents didn't use. And that sounds crazy, but
it wasn't. But we felt very very loved and we
felt very very secure in that it just the words

(16:54):
weren't spoken, and so we were. We grew up with
this belief that we could do anything that we wanted
to do, anything that we put our minds to. My
dad used to always say what the mind can perceive,
the will can achieve, and it was the statement of
constantly believing that you could do whatever you put your

(17:15):
mind to. It was about hard work, it was about sacrifice,
It was about you know, doing what you needed to
do to be successful, that hustle, that grind, and so
we grew up believing that there wasn't anything that we
couldn't do if we put our mind to it. We
worked hard and we believed that we could achieve it,
and so that was the richness. Obviously, we grew up

(17:37):
in the church, and so you know, we had a
spiritual grounding and knew where our gifts came from, believed
that our steps were ordered, and that it was our
job to use the gifts we were given to make
the world a better place. And so growing up with
that as the upbringing, you just believe that you not

(18:00):
only can do things, but that you're required to do
things to make things better for people.

Speaker 1 (18:07):
So fascinating. Your parents didn't physically tell you they loved you,
but somehow you knew it anyway through I guess through
their actions. Right.

Speaker 2 (18:15):
Yeah, we were hugged a lot. Yeah, a lot of
a lot of affirmation, just not the words I love you.

Speaker 1 (18:22):
And let's put your parents in history, historical record. Let's
say their names, please.

Speaker 2 (18:29):
Yes, Willy, Willie and Margaret Williams.

Speaker 1 (18:33):
Thank you Willy and Margaret Williams. You did a good job.
You had to not transition, you had to transplant yourself
from a black world to a white one. You just
mentioned that earlier. How did you survive that and what
did that teach you that allowed you later on to
survive and thrive in the corporate setting that I want

(18:53):
to go back to college.

Speaker 2 (18:56):
Yeah. I think what became really fascinating very quickly is
is as we traversed those worlds, and so we would
spend nine months in Tucson and then we'd go back
to Compton for and spent our summers in Compton. The
practical reality was it was one hundred and ten degrees
in Tucson. But the other is, when your dad's a

(19:17):
track coach, you know, kind of summers are the only
time he really has has off after the track season ends.
And so our life was very much traversing back and
forth between those two worlds, and I think very very
quickly we realized we weren't black enough for the black
kids anymore, and we weren't white enough for the white kids.

(19:37):
So all of a sudden, the black kids started saying,
you talk funny. Why are you talking like that? You
talk with an accent, you know. The white kids, you know,
were like, your hair is different. Why is your hair different?
And so the going back to what you were saying
earlier with good parents, My parents were very grounded in

(19:59):
the fact that you don't change who you are depending
on what your environment is. You were always who you
are and allow people to adjust to you. You don't
adjust to other people. And again I didn't realize it
at the time, but what that instilled that has served
me very very well in my life and especially in

(20:20):
corporate is I show up authentically who I am. Like
when people talk about imposter syndrome, I'm fortunate that that's
something I've never understood because my parents kind of beat
that out of us at a very early age, right,
which is like, you be who you are, You be
authentic to who you are, and the world will adjust

(20:41):
to you. You don't adjust to the world. And I
think that was really foundational for us as kids, and
so it gave us permission to be who we were authentically.

Speaker 1 (20:54):
Quincy Jones once told me God bless us, soul rest
and so al He said, not one ounce of myself
esteem depends on your acceptance of mem That's reminds me
of how your parents raised you. Yeah, very much said
fifteen years of Fanny May. And so we should probably
describe very briefly what Fanny May is. Fanny May and
Freddie Mac. Fanny May is the bigger of the two

(21:16):
entities in a culture, the rewards jumping in title stacking.
What made you stay? What were your building blocks there
that you couldn't get somewhere else? Why was that important
to stay there for fifteen years? And again that's unpacked,
just very briefly what Fanny May is.

Speaker 2 (21:33):
Yeah, So Fanny May take. So they're in what's called
the secondary market, so wells Fargo's in the primary market.
We lend directly to consumers. Fanny May and Freddie Mac
then take those loans and lenders actually sell them to
Fanny May and Freddie Mac. They take a bunch of
loans and put them together and then put them out

(21:55):
into the capital markets as a security. And it's those
securities and investors investing in those securities that then allows
rates to go down or rates to be lower as
a result of the efficiency of the investors getting those returns.

(22:16):
So Fannie May had a really critical role to play.
Always tell you a way you can tell the effectiveness
of Fanny and Freddy is if you look You don't
have to look in the paper anymore, but if you
go online and look at what rates are for a
jumbo mortgage or what rates are for a conventional mortgage,
which is which is what Fanny and Freddie secure. That

(22:38):
spread difference is the value or that gap is the
difference of what the value of a Fanny May or
Freddie Mac is to consumers.

Speaker 1 (22:48):
It subsidizes the rate it buys down the cost of
getting mortgage. When so Fanny Main and Freddie Mack are like,
they're not government entities. Well their government.

Speaker 2 (22:58):
Related, government related, Yeah, government sponsored entity m g S.

Speaker 1 (23:05):
Yeah. Okay, So you ran worldwide Oh this is so sexy.
You ran worldwide, worldwide corporate HR at PepsiCo. Now that's
all cool. If you come to Atlanta. You can't come
to Land talk about Pepsi but co color. But that's cool.
You were a worldwide HR human resources at PepsiCo. Uh.

(23:28):
That's not typical move for someone in financial services. What
did a role like that teach you that no finance
job would and was that intentional to take that role?

Speaker 2 (23:39):
Yeah? So Pepsi was before my financial services career. So
I went for Baxter Healthcare yep. Yeah, So I went
for Baxter Healthcare to then Pepsi. Uh, and was in
my whole eight and a half years at Pepsi, I
was in human resources and so I had been with
the Freedolay division in the field for six years and

(23:59):
then got this move to move to corporate headquarters and
manage worldwide. I think was what was powerful about having
worldwide responsibility was getting the international experience, like really trying
to figure out how other countries how they actually operated,
how the culture was different. It was all PEPSI, but

(24:20):
the culture was different depending on the culture or the
country where people were from. And so it was like
learning how to drive results and be successful in cultures
that had different values, that had different systems than kind
of what we had at PEPSI. So that was really powerful.
And then I left PEPSI and went into financial services.

(24:43):
So I think the building blocks John when I think
back on my career, there's a common thread that goes
through it all. Whether it was healthcare or consumer products
or financial services, the common thread really was this understanding people,
understand the needs of people, and figuring out what solutions

(25:04):
were to make that make things better for those people.
And so, you know, whether if it's in sales, it
was actually selling a product to be able to deliver
that and understand what people's needs were around that product.
In human resources, it was around kind of putting talent
together and helping kind of drive results for the company

(25:24):
or making sure we had the right people in the
right seats to deliver what the company needed. And then
when I moved into then managing you know, a business
and actually running a business, it was about how do
you put all those things together. How do you get
the most out of people? Take this incremental effort that
people have and have them give it to you so

(25:44):
you can get better results, but then deliver for whatever
the stakeholder needed. And so you talk about building blocks.
It looks like diverse jobs, but it really was building blocks.
On in each job, I learned something that helped me
be more successful at the next job, right Learning how
to get along with people, learning how to get the

(26:06):
best out of people, learning how to design systems so
that the company could work better. Each one of those
jobs taught me how to do that so that when
I was then running a business, I was able to
take all those experiences and put them together.

Speaker 1 (26:20):
You know, it's really wonderful about listening to you unpack
all of this, putting this fact that I'm a personal
fan of yours aside. If I had taken off the
visuals here, we weren't just doing a simple podcast. I
hadn't said you were an African American. And if we
even had AI mask your voice so that it was
neutral and you can tell whether you're male or female,

(26:43):
no one listening to this here around the world. We'll
be able to discern because you're just talking to us. Excellence.
It's not black excellence, it's not female excellence, is not
some asterisk excellence. It's just excellence. And you come ready
to and I like that. And what hit me also

(27:04):
about your story? And I really hadn't thought about it
until this interview. I think because I think about I
try to be president. I think about you in the
current context. You went from you You've traveled industries and
you've traveled the world. You went from healthcare to a
government sponsored entity, I mean, not necessarily to a beverage business,

(27:24):
a government sponsored entity, not necessarily in this order, a
mortgage operation. Uh, really an operating leader and of regional company,
a balance sheet, running a balance sheet in an income
statement at a pretty young age. Then running a national
company and sorry, yeah, a national company, uh with in

(27:48):
the in the banking, in the finance and mortgage space.
And now and then internationally, whether it's the second time
in international PepsiCo in this one, uh with Wells Fargo,
and and you're going from Compton to Copenhagen. And bring
anybody listening to this who want to know how to
play it in a high level. You never want to

(28:09):
pay for stuff yourself if you can avoid it, Like
you don't want to pay for a corporate jet, you
want to go on the company's corporate jet. Right. You know,
if you're swapping your own credit card, you're doing something wrong.
If you don't want to pay to travel all around
the world, you want to get a job. If that's
your passion that takes you around the world, let them
pay for it. I mean, you're it's fair changing the robbery.
You're not cheating them. You're their emissary, you're their ambassador

(28:33):
around the world. You're doing the job. You're putting the
work in ninety percent of your travel, it's gonna be business,
but you'll take ten percent while you're there and explore
the culture. And that makes you, as you're hearing from Christy,
a well rounded person. There's a version of career advancement, Christy,
where you're always sort of playing offense, getting the next title,

(28:54):
the next check. And then there's another version where you're
playing chess and not checkers. Which one were you playing
the was the answer? And at what point did you
know the difference between which one you were playing.

Speaker 2 (29:09):
Yeah, it's a good question, John, because I don't I
you know Steve Jobs said, you can only connect the
dots looking backward, and I think as I was in
it and living it, I was always really focused on
doing a good job at the job that I had.
I was always very cognizant to my job was to

(29:32):
make my boss look good and to make my boss's
life easier. And so I not only was doing my work,
but I always tried to understand from my boss, like
what are we trying to achieve and how do I
do my part to help you achieve that? And I
think what that did for me and maybe this is
a little bit of the chest as I was thinking
about next move, I never was focused on what my

(29:53):
next move was, but by really being intentional about making
sure my boss was successful and sure we were doing
what the company needed us to do. I was always
thinking broader about the company, never just about the role
that I had, and so that really helped. When an
opportunity came up, my boss would say, hey, I hate

(30:16):
to lose her, but Christy should go on that or
special projects. I would get nominated for special projects that
then got me exposure to other people in the company
that then just led to my next opportunity and my
next job. And so the first job I ever applied for,

(30:37):
and really the only job I ever applied for, was
my first job out of college at Baxter. All my
other jobs has come from somebody reaching out and saying,
will you come take this job or we think you'd
be created this, and so the movement happened by other people,
not by me applying applying for jobs, and so I think,

(30:59):
you know, that is the I was focused on doing
a good job. I was focused on leaving an impact
and having an impact broader than the role that I
was in, but trying to have a broader impact on
the company and really trying to understand what were the
problems of the company and how could I help solve them,
even from my chair. And that just made people notice

(31:20):
me and say, let's give her the opportunity to go
do more, and that just afforded me continued opportunities to
go do more.

Speaker 1 (31:30):
So you and I never had this conversation before. You know,
this is the first time. And it's ironic that you're
answering in ways that just are very consistent with top
line leaders. It's not ironic. Maybe I writing to the audience,
not I writing to me. It is pleasing to me
that all these things are pretty much the same. What
do I mean by that? At never, at one time

(31:51):
that you infer this was about you, This is about
making your boss look good. And you know this is
about to give. And I say about about relationships a
give A giver is exotic, A giver or take her
is neurotic, and a taker or take her is psychotic.
And when I'm hanging around you, I see you around

(32:12):
other givers. And even the way you just talked about
leading is leading through service. It's how do I make
my boss look good? You talk about your husband when
he's not there in very admirable ways. You're always giving
him props. By the way, let's give him his Let's
give him his props. Public that his name is Steve,
Steve Ferko, good brother. And and so my guess is

(32:39):
and I'm the same way in the way I think
you're going to answer. You never asked for money, Sorry,
you never asked for what? How much were you going
to get paid in these different jobs? That was never
one of the top three questions. Let me back up
before I say that. Let me say that I've you've
also mentioned relationship capital and I often say if you
hang around nine bro people, you'll be the tenth. So

(33:00):
you you were around the right people. You didn't fill
out an application. But one time it was people saying,
you know what, Chrissy is pretty talented and these might
be white people. Just be really blunt here. These might
be an oftentimes white people because they're in the power structure,
and they weren't.

Speaker 2 (33:13):
Most of the time there was you go.

Speaker 1 (33:15):
So they were just recognizing, here's a very talented person
who can help me grow my things respect. It's irrelevant
that she's black female. It might have been positive because
it makes them look good in some way, but they didn't.
That was an afterthought. It was like, oh no, she's confident,
and I want people to hear that. And I also
want to now go to this question about was it

(33:36):
ever about money? Because at the society, this generation behind
yours and mine, I'm so I'm just getting so tired
of everything being a conversation about money, money, money. Even
relationships now are getting transactional, and that's just wrong. You're
gonna lose lose, losees the taker mentality. Am I right
that your top three four questions when asking about a

(33:58):
new position, new job you did. It not even cover
the issue of what does this position pay?

Speaker 2 (34:03):
Yes, never, it never came up. It was always about
the experience. It was always about taking an inventory of
what I had in my toolbox and what skills I
wanted to learn. And if it was about learning new
skills and new opportunity, I was all for it.

Speaker 1 (34:23):
That's payment.

Speaker 2 (34:23):
Actually, yes, that's payment. Yeah, it's a different level of currency.
It's a different currency.

Speaker 1 (34:29):
That's it. Where did you feel genuinely powerful in your career? When?
At what point? And when and where? When did you
feel not comfortable or powerful? It might have been a
different day in the same position, who knows. Yeah, what
did like and what did you feel like in that
that moment? Like?

Speaker 2 (34:47):
What?

Speaker 1 (34:47):
In other words, share the audience that you if you
ever felt not enough?

Speaker 2 (34:53):
Yeah, well I'll start with the I'll start with the
powerful one first. I definitely have felt both, but I
think the and it was it had to do with
my coming to wealth. So I got the call about
the job at Wells, and I went into the interview,

(35:14):
and interestingly, the job about the or the call about
the job at Wells came one week to the day
after George Floyd's murder.

Speaker 1 (35:22):
Wow.

Speaker 2 (35:23):
And I had spent that week really really struggling. And
I don't know if people remember, but taking people back,
we had had a succession of murders, with people being
killed in their homes on the street, And it was
this awareness for me that my blackness all of a

(35:43):
sudden made me uniquely vulnerable in this world in a
way that I hadn't thought about before, because again going
back to my upbringing, we traversed both of those worlds.
So it wasn't about being black. It was about being
excellent to your point. That's how I was raised, and
so that aireness was like and I'm a big runner,
so it was like, you mean I can go out

(36:04):
on the street and run and somebody shoot me or
run me over with the car. So after the George Floyd,
I was I was really in a bad way, and
I just kept thinking about how do I contribute, what's
my role? How do I make this better? What can
I do to change the plight for black and brown families?
And I just kept hearing a voice that said, it's housing.

(36:26):
It's housing, You're where you need to be. Home Ownership
is still the single largest financial purchase that many people
will make ever make. It's still the quickest path to
wealth and generational wealth if you keep the home in
the family. And so it was about is what the

(36:47):
single largest or the fastest way to wealth and wealth,
gender building, generational wealth that most people will ever have,
And so it was I was in the right place.
So when I got the call a week later about
the job at Wells Fargo, in every interview when people

(37:07):
asked why did I want this job, my answer was
because I want to put more black and brown people
in homes. And to my great surprise, every interviewer said,
that's really great. Come do that at Wells Fargo.

Speaker 1 (37:23):
Wow.

Speaker 2 (37:23):
And the powerful part was is I had a job.
I had only been at Flagstar for three years. I
had a job and was perfectly happy at that job.
And while Wells Fargo was ten times the size and
the biggest mortgage job in the country at the time,
it was that that wasn't important to me. I was

(37:44):
searching for bigger legacy, how to make things better, bigger
better for others. And so the boldness the power that
I felt in saying my intention is to put more
black and brown people in homes and to have that
and say that's great. Do that here? That that made
you know? That was like, wow, that's what using your

(38:06):
power looks like. And so then stepping into mortgage, there
was never a question over what my intentions were because
I had been really clear about that up front. And
so I think the learning from that, and certainly the
message to your listeners is you always have more power
than you think you have. Use your leverage for good

(38:28):
and to make things better for others. Don't be afraid
to hold on to what you have or what you
might lose. So that was the first thing I would say.
The place where I felt pretty vulnerable was the first
time I actually left Fanny May and went into Flagstar

(38:49):
again as the head of mortgage. It was my first
time truly in a standalone running my own income statement
and balance sheet, and every day I felt overwhelmed. Every
day I had the question of am I good enough?
Do I have the knowledge and skills to do this?
It was one thing to run it inside of a

(39:10):
company Fanny May or to be a part of. I
was running a division inside of Fanny Mae, but somebody
else was responsible for the whole thing. All of a sudden,
I was responsible for the whole thing and so, and
we were a publicly traded company and so it was,
and with eighty percent of the revenue coming from mortgage,
So that was an enormous amount of pressure that I

(39:32):
was feeling about am I good enough? Do I have
the right knowledge? Can I pull all this together? And
that's where, to your point, this relationship capital really fell in.
It was leaning on people, being very open and vulnerable
about how I was feeling coming home every night talking
to my husband, and you know, he would boost me up,

(39:53):
like are you kidding me? You haven't like, you know,
you know what to do, you know the right people,
you have the right team, like relying on them. And
I think that's what I've learned in my career, John,
is success isn't about the contribution of any one individual.
Like any career success I have, it is a culmination
of the great relationships I've had, the people that I've

(40:15):
invested in, and what I've been able to achieve with
other people. It's also the most rewarding part of a
career as well. But it is you know, not being
afraid to ask for help, not being afraid to lean
on other people, because wherever you feel you have a gap,

(40:36):
there's somebody who's got that information, that knowledge to be
able to fill in the gap where you might feel lacking.
And it was a really powerful lesson on we don't
do anything, including this life alone.

Speaker 1 (40:50):
Amen. So Christy, as we began to come in the
home stretcher and an incredibly good interview, and I want
to switch from head to heart as we've got in
their home stretch can get it real personal. But as
we do that, let's take a zoom out for a minute,

(41:12):
and let's not mention the elephant in the room. There
was a time where Wells Fargo's reputation was in the
tank and I was on the community board in Los
Angeles where a lot of these shenanigans were dreamed up
twenty years ago, and I advised people not to do this,
and they ignored me. That was two Wells Fargo's ago.
Even though it has the same name, I think without

(41:33):
those problems, I mean, as I look back, the management
was almost entirely white, and they had some white females,
but it was entirely white. And if it wasn't for
those problems, for I want the listeners to understand this,
rainbows only follow storms. You cannot have a rainbow without
a storm first, and nobody's perfect, so don't look for that.
But without those problems that wells Fargo new leadership, I

(41:57):
don't believe Wouldham said in more enlightened way, you know
what we need to change that make sure that never
happens again. We also need to change the people and
make sure they're more reflective, and I think that's part
of the reason why the management committee and two layers
down also was much more diverse under Charlie Sharf. Would
you agree with that, Yeah, I mean.

Speaker 2 (42:16):
I think Charlie was really clear about you have to
get people in who I mean we had to fix
the problem. So you have to get people in who
have the skills to be able to fix the problems
and could be laser focused on that. But as you know,
we think of ourselves as you know, kind of a
large super regional bank, like we are the main Street.

(42:40):
You know, we do Wall Street or also the Main Street,
and so we have forty one hundred branches in communities
all over this country. You have to be on the
ground in those communities and look like those communities to
understand the needs of those communities and develop product and
solutions to be able to serve those community. And so

(43:02):
I think that's critically important that the company reflect the
customers that they are trying to serve. And that's at
the front line, all the way into the c suite.

Speaker 1 (43:16):
And I think that the bank is now best in class.
I mean, everybody makes mistakes every now and then, but
I'm i'd put right up there at the top. And
and it's She's right. It's Wall Street with with a
touch of main Street. So let's go.

Speaker 3 (43:30):
Personal, now main Street with the Wall Street.

Speaker 1 (43:33):
She's gone once up first, you flipped it. For those
who who understand code switching, she just flipped the code
because they really are a huge Wall Street firm, and
even to give them the complement that they understand main
Street would be a complement, she's flipped it. So no, no,
we're main Street. Don't get it twisted. Who Yeah, yeah,

(43:54):
that's that's that's uh. You've used the term double only
the only black person and the only woman in the room.
Of course, I know half of that feeling. What's the
emotional cost of carrying that role? How do you not
let it crush you? And you've also said that because

(44:14):
you're the only person in the room. People listen that
you were never afraid to be the challenged voice. Talk
to me about and us about what it takes, what
that actually looks like, and what it took to learn
how to use that voice that way, because a lot
of people in your position go completely quiet.

Speaker 3 (44:33):
Yeah, well, I think two things.

Speaker 2 (44:36):
One, the double only is the only thing I know, right,
So being the only woman in the room, being the
only black in the room, especially in mortgage banking, you
just get comfortable. And I think my upbringing had a
lot to do with that. Given our upbringing, we were
comfortable in every room because we were just authentic to

(44:59):
who we are. I think the value though, when you
are the double only, the value is no one else
in the room has your lived experience, and so when
you're there, you represent your experience. You also, I think
you have an obligation to represent your experience in a
way that can help inform and educate others, so it

(45:22):
can improve the decision making or whatever is gonna you know,
gonna happen. I was never afraid to ask the tough question,
especially the questions that were difficult, that got to the
heart of the matter. If that's what was important for
us to be able to move forward. And it was
just really important that you understood that when you're in

(45:45):
the room, you have this responsibility to bring others right.
So as the double only, I had responsibility to make
sure that that perspective was represented in the room. If
I tried to just blend in with my peers or
with the other of the room, then I wasn't really
adding the unique value that I could add.

Speaker 3 (46:04):
And I think that's what people miss.

Speaker 2 (46:06):
When they're quiet in a room, which is you have
a unique perspective that can actually help solve the problem,
or add a different perspective to move the problem in
a different way. That different lens with which you see
the world could be exactly the lens that.

Speaker 3 (46:22):
Is needed to solve the problem.

Speaker 2 (46:24):
And so for me, it was always this responsibility being
in the room to make sure that the doors were
opened wider so that those who came behind me could
come through with more ease and opportunity than I did.

Speaker 1 (46:41):
I I'm gonna ask you a question I never asked anybody,
and you're uniquely able to answer it. And the audience
is thriving, is desperate for these answers. I'm gonna give
you both questions at the same time. Answered, However, you like,
what's the most dangerous thing that a black executive can

(47:04):
do in corporate America? You sort of almost already answered,
what's the most dangerous thing they can't do, which is
to not be representative? So what's the most dangerous thing
that a black or a Latino or a woman fill
in the blank executive can do in corporate America? And
has there ever been moments when you you were misread?

(47:26):
I know the answer this where your confidence was labeled
something else, your directly is mistaken for something it wasn't.
How did you handle that without compromising who you are? Boy?
These are loaded question. Yes, come on, let's go at it.

Speaker 3 (47:46):
Wow.

Speaker 2 (47:49):
Yeah, I get misread all the time, even to this day,
I get misread all the time. People think they know
my story. People look at me, and I think they
make assumptions about me based on how I look, or
based on how I talk or what they see of me,

(48:09):
that they have no idea what my story is. And
so when I say I'm from Compton, when I say,
you know, my father committed suicide when I was fifteen
years old, and I was raised by a single mother,
people are like, Oh, I just assumed you grew up
in a two parent household. Like people make assumptions all
the time, and so I am the embodiment of don't

(48:33):
judge people because you never know their story. And so
what well I always try to do when people misunderstand
or misinterpret, I do two things. One, I don't overly
worry about it, because it's not mine to control. Their
perception of me has nothing to do with who I

(48:55):
actually am or what I actually am, and so I
think of it more is that's their problem than mine
to the extent that is impacting then my ability to
get stuff done.

Speaker 3 (49:07):
I lean into relationships.

Speaker 2 (49:09):
I try to either engage them directly and understand what
the problem is and how we move forward so we
could focus on the work. Or I engage somebody that
I know has a good relationship with them that I
also have a relationship with them to kind of be
a broker or a bridge to be able to get

(49:31):
us kind of on the same page. But I think
my entire career I've been underestimated or labeled, and it's
about it's about just staying.

Speaker 3 (49:45):
On your path.

Speaker 2 (49:47):
People's view of you doesn't actually change who you are
or what you are. You know what is true, and
so you just keep lean in. And if that door
isn't open for you as a result of someone's perception
of you, then that wasn't the door you were supposed
to step through. I believe that what's intended for you

(50:08):
will be and that no one can actually stop that
from happening.

Speaker 3 (50:12):
So if that door is closing, then maybe that's not
the place.

Speaker 1 (50:16):
You should be. And what's that dangerous thing that a
black executive or a minority executive can do and needs
to avoid? And I mean, let me, we're running out
of time, and this is so rich I want to
get as much in. I'm gonna join that with another
question for efficiency sake, what is the one mistake you
see brilliant young black and brown professionals make most often

(50:38):
as they try to move up. So you have any
black executive that's in the seat, and what's the thing
they must not do to avoid? And what's that thing
that young people do that you're like, ooh, you know,
I really would suggest.

Speaker 2 (50:50):
You not do that. Yeah, I think what is dangerous
and mistakes I see people make. It's not being true
to who they are. I am always really clear about
where my line is, and I have defined upfront before
I go into a situation, what my non negotiables are,
what's important to me, what do I stand for. It's

(51:12):
rooted in my faith, it's rooted in my values, it's
rooted in who I am. But I never move that line.
And the mistake that I see people make is compromising
on where their line is or moving it. And you
justify and you just make one normal decision, but you
keep moving your line. That's really really dangerous because you'll

(51:32):
wake up one day and not recognize yourself or not
recognize what you've become.

Speaker 3 (51:38):
And so it's always important to be true to yourself.

Speaker 2 (51:43):
Because at the end of the day, when your career
is over, or when you leave that company and you
go somewhere else, what you what you are left with
is your integrity and who you were, who you are,
who you were, and what was most important and what's

(52:04):
most important at the end of the day. No one
ever says on their deathbed, I wish I had more
time at work, or I wish I would have made
a different decision at work. Right, it's about what's the
legacy you're leading behind, who you loved who you. You know,
it's about family, it's about legacy, it's much bigger. It's
about who you loved and loved in return and where

(52:25):
you loved in return. Like that at the essence of
our life is kind of what's critically important.

Speaker 1 (52:31):
So the advice, so the thing that you would not
want the corporate executive to do and the young person
coming up is the same thing.

Speaker 2 (52:40):
It's the same thing. Got to be authentic to who
you are, and you've got to know where your line is.

Speaker 1 (52:45):
And would you agree, don't be emotional in your decision
makings at work because it's going to be probably be misread. Yes, yeah, yeah,
trick to be a person of color. Yeah, so I
was gonna.

Speaker 2 (52:58):
Emotion is important though, but you got to know when
I said sometimes emotion is important.

Speaker 3 (53:02):
So you got to know when to do it, and
you got to know who to deal it with, and
you have to have relationship to do it.

Speaker 2 (53:08):
That's right, when things are really unacceptable, you have to
let people know that that's unacceptable.

Speaker 1 (53:13):
Boom. That part your value system, your value system. So
Operation Hope is a partner of yours, and we are
in the Hope inside of branches and you and Darlene
and others have really kicked the door in there and
made sure that we had a presence. And it's a
real partnership and it's indirectly tied to your current role. Let's,

(53:34):
as we wrap up, help the audience understand your current role.
Why is it meaningful in this moment that I think
is a historic moment third reconstruction from civil rights to
civil rights. And if I just left you Riff for
the last few minutes of your podcast and whatever you
wanted to share, this was your this is your ministry
of finance, if your this is your pullpit of Hope,

(53:55):
what would you say to the audience.

Speaker 2 (53:58):
Well, first of all, just as I talk about Operation
Hope and the relationship that we have, I think it
is one of the greatest examples of public private partnership
coming together to really make a meaningful impact. The Hope
inside centers that are in the Wells Fargo branches. I
think we have over forty now we'll have fifty by

(54:20):
the end of the year. Really is about a free
service letting people walk in off the streets and get
the help that they need to create the financial future
that is going to make their life better and going
to serve their families for generations to come.

Speaker 3 (54:38):
It's about giving the.

Speaker 2 (54:39):
Knowledge and investing in people with the knowledge, the tools
and the resources, and being a real partner to help
them be able to do the hard work right, building
those daily habits to reduce debt, increase savings, start investing,
buy a home if they so choose, And so that
partnership is create important. Operation Hope brings the plan and

(55:02):
Wells Fargo helps with the scale by being able to
do it in our branches, in those communities where people
can walk in and get help. And I think that's
when I'm so passionate about the role that I have
with financial inclusion. It is recognizing that people can have
the financial future that they desire. They just have to
be willing to work hard and do the work, make

(55:27):
the tough choices to be able to do it. And
the first thing we have to do, John, is people
have to get over the shame. There's so much shame
and guilt about how we have managed or haven't managed
our finances. We've all made like those money mistakes that
have set us back or made bad choices. Maybe there's
some of your listeners who are in that place right now.
It is never too late. You can always start again.

(55:50):
And I think Operation Hope the Hope in Side centers
are a great way for people to get the help
that they need to be able to start again.

Speaker 3 (56:01):
And so I've just come to this understanding.

Speaker 2 (56:04):
My mother is eighty six years old and she lives
in her home that is paid for. So she paid
off a thirty year fix great mortgage, never refinancing one.
But she is eighty six years old living in a
house that she is paid off, her car is paid off,
and the most my mother ever made in her life

(56:26):
was forty thousand dollars a year. And so my mother
is the embodiment of what is possible when you make
the choice to sacrifice, to align your money decisions with
like your values.

Speaker 3 (56:42):
Home ownership was a value. Education for her kids was
a value.

Speaker 2 (56:45):
So I'm a product of a mother who sacrificed so
I could have an education and do what I'm doing.
And so it's all possible. People just have to believe
that it is possible. And once they have that belief,
then and seek they write help and support to be
able to get the attention and the support that they

(57:06):
need to be able to make that a reality for them.

Speaker 1 (57:10):
Beautiful if you can believe it. I actually had more questions,
but I'm gonna we're We're over time. This has been fabulous.
Can I ask one one final bonus question? Please? Sure
folks are listening to this, they've been intrigued by you,

(57:30):
inspired by you. By the end of this podcast, they
trust you. They feel like they have their relationship with you.
So they wanted to put the guards down, no shame.
Somebody out here listening to this wants to be a baller.
They want to access capital at a significant level. They
want to be a preferred customer. They want to be

(57:51):
able to get a credit line that's one hundred thousand,
five hundred thousand, a million, five million. They want their
business to be able to be business that the operating
committee knows who they are in a capitalized way. As
somebody sitting inside one of the biggest banks in the
world and having a dual focus and being bilingual, can

(58:17):
you tell the audience what, in your opinion is the
key is to operationalize and I dream first of all,
is it possible as a personal color to access capital
at that level at a bank like Wells Fargo or others?
And how in summary should they think about doing that.
It may take them a two, three, five years, ten
years to get there, but how do they get how

(58:37):
do they go about getting to your table?

Speaker 2 (58:40):
Yeah, I think it's really simple. I think people should
develop It's about relationship. So develop a relationship with a
banker in this case, develop relationship with a banker and
tell them your dreams, tell them what you're trying to do,
and create a roadmap for how you're going to get there.

(59:01):
That person then will invest in you. They'll invest in
your dream they'll help move you along the path. So
as you need capital to scale your business, as you
need the information, the different tools and resources, they'll be
helpful to help you move along. So no matter where
someone is in this path, Again, none of us gets

(59:24):
to where we are by ourselves. We need people who
this is what they do, to partner with to invest in.
And so I would encourage people to develop a relationship
with a local banker. I would love it to be
Wells Fargo, but if not, then get it somewhere. But

(59:44):
you've got to get with people that have access to
the resources, the capital, the information that you need.

Speaker 3 (59:52):
And people think you have to have money to go
to banks. You don't. Banks are here to.

Speaker 2 (59:58):
Help people get into the system, develop the resources that
they need to be able to realize their dreams.

Speaker 3 (01:00:06):
And I didn't get a banker to invest in your dream.

Speaker 1 (01:00:09):
So as we wrap this up in Bassador Andrew Young's quote,
that's coincidence is God's way and remaining anonymous rings true
because she didn't know. I didn't know what her answer
was going to be. She was going to answer the question,
But that line's completely up with. My first adult bank
account was at Wells Fargo AD a branch from Picco
Boulevard in West Los Angeles, and I think it was

(01:00:30):
eighteen years old, and I remember the bank branch manager, Shapiro,
and he gave me my first credit card and all
that kind of stuff, and and he had he could.
I was bousing checks, but I was floating. I was
floating chick, and he might cover me for a day
or two. He get dinged himself if I didn't cover

(01:00:51):
that check, but he had enough credibility to say, John,
don't give you a couple more days. And then as
I every level I went up, I had somebody else
i'd meet who was appropriate for that level, who said, John,
I got you, and I would. My job was to
inform them, educate them, keep them updated about the good
news and the bad news of my life. There was
no surprises ever. If there was any bad news, I
told them first. But what you heard here, she didn't

(01:01:13):
tell you about financial statements and p and ls and
all that stuff. All that's important. She can tell you
about a business plan, all that's important. She told you
to build a relationship. Yeah, and that's what I've been
telling you.

Speaker 2 (01:01:26):
So.

Speaker 1 (01:01:27):
Christy Ferko did not wait for the world to make
room for her ladies and gentlemen. She walked in the
rooms where no one looked like her. She spoke when
speaking had a cause, and she made herself indispensable, not
by shrinking, but by showing up fully. That's not just

(01:01:47):
a career story. That's a blueprint. That's why I call
this a master class. Today. If you're navigating a space,
it wasn't built for you, and let's be honest, most
of the spaces weren't. Christy just showed told you what
it takes and what it looks like to survive and
to lead. Now I can be written off, maybe as

(01:02:10):
a one off, as an entrepreneur and all that kind
of stuff. But Christy's a blueprint. She's inside of a
fortune I think one hundred company in search of five
hundred for sure, and she's done it for thirty years.
With competence that's replicable. You can be the next Christy Ferco. Christy,

(01:02:35):
thank you for joining us. This is Money and Wealth
on the Black Effect Network on iHeartRadio. And this is
a masterclass from Compton to the c suite. Thank you, Christy,
Thank you. Money and Wealth with John O'Brien is a
production of the Black Effect Podcast Network. For more podcasts

(01:02:57):
from the Black Effect Podcast Network, visit the iheartwaredio, have
Apple podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.